Burning Days
by Hattie1997
Summary: It is the day of the final battle and the end is in sight, but maybe the result isn't quite what is expected. My first Bellatrix / Voldemort pairing so please be nice. This is dedicated to my friend, Emma, who's birthday is the 7th of November. Thanks
1. Burning Days

It is universally acknowledged that those who take pleasure in the pain and distress of others will never find those simple desires in life that the rest of us so enjoy. It is widely known that any Witch or Wizard willing to join _His _ranks must be of the very highest pureblood descent, and what better than a previous Black. Yes, she may now be a Lestrange, but that snivelling, cowardly, almost-Squib of a husband of hers could not, would not, give her that surge of joy that came from watching someone else, someone less than you, writhe on the cold, stone ground, mouth open in a wordless scream of agony. He could not give her the rush of adrenaline than derived from standing by _His _side, watching those mere _children _attempt to protect their school, and cackling at their pitiful attempts.

Rodolphus Lestrange was, as his name suggested, a strange man, barely worthing of licking the soles of her shoes. He was a thin, weedy man of fifty to her forty-seven, with greasy, black hair, not unlike Severus Snape's, and beetling, black eyes that always seemed to be fixed resolutely on her. She always managed to escape his company and take up dinner with _Her Lord_, but he always came for her, and she could not say no. She was not allowed to say no. He was always impeccably dressed...or, at least, he tried to be, but he was a brute when eating, and food always managed to spill from the corners of his cracked, thin lips to splatter onto the dress robes he so meticulously put on.

The Dark Lord was displeased. He had never particularly liked the Lestrange brothers, and he liked Rodolphus even less, but they were useful and so far he had had no reason to dispose of them like he so wanted to do. Many believed it was due to his sloppy behaviour and cowardly ways, but the truth of the matter was so much more sinister. He disliked Rodolphus merely because he had Bellatrix. The long, wild, crazy hair was the envy of all of his followers, most especially her own sister, Narcissa, and her bottomless, black eyes seemed to bore frostily into those who dared displease her. But no one did. After the horror of the torture of Frank and Alice Longbottom she elevated herself even more in hisfollowers minds, creating a pedestal for herself that only one person could shatter. He had no wish to. He had use for her yet, but even when she had no further use he would still keep her around because, and this was something he would admit to no one, he was in love. He was in love with a married woman. Of course this didn't stop him. Nothing ever could stop him.

"My Lord, they are ready."

He turned. There she was, in all her glory. Her robes, cleanly pressed for this such occasion, hung off her slim frame, pooling on the floor and swishing almost silently along the leaf-strewn grass beneath her feet. He gave her a small nod, stilling what was left of his heart, which had been pounding. He mentally berated himself. He, Lord Voldemort, had no cause to act like a love-struck teenager. He knew she loved him, she shown him more than once of her love, but he had never said it in return, and she never asked him to. She knew. She always knew.

"Give the order."

His voice came as a low rasp, excitement swelling in his chest. This was it. This day would go down in history as the day Harry Potter fell. The second of May 1998 would be the day he would finally become the true, unequalised ruler of the Magical Community, not just in England, but in the World. Rufus Scrimgeour was already dead, he hadn't really put up much of a fight, and Pius Thicknesse, who was currently in office, was little more than a puppet, a pawn in his plans. As soon as Potter was dead and Thicknesse disposed of, his would finally be able to rule as he wished.

"Fire!"

Bellatrix's emotionless, unsympathetic command broke into his disturbing thoughts and he watched, a small smirk curling the corners of his lips, as spells rent the previously tranquil air to smash harshly on the barrier that Minerva McGonagall and some of the other teachers had unwisely created. Their defiance really was innocent, but they were naive if they thought that a mere spell barrier would stop him from gaining entrance to the Castle that he had called a home for so long. He never wished to fight on Hogwarts grounds, but he had no choice, and what would be more fitting than finishing this at the same place it had effectively started.

With a cracking noise, like glass under pressure, the wall collapsed, and his followers entered the Castle. Moving silently, alone, he made his way into the Forbidden Forest, eyes swishing across the desolation that had already befallen Hogwarts. Many a friend or foe lay on the ground, unmoving, but nothing touched his stone cold heart, nothing made the despicable grin on his face disappear, and nothing made him stop his slow way into the Forest.

The time passed quickly, as it always did when one is having fun, and he was most certainly having fun. Hearing the pain-filled, agonising cries and screams caused his smirk to widen, his snake-like nostrils to flare, and his lips to let out a cruel laugh, the sound reverberating off the mountainous trees around him.

And finally he'd had enough. His wand moved from his pocket to his arm and he pressed down sharply, ignoring the flare of pain that started up where it touched. Usually he would have done this to one of his followers, but none had stayed with him, all thirsty for a taste of death and blood. And who was he to deny them?

A moment later crashing was heard and Bellatrix Lestrange made her appearance, looking no less worse for wear than before they had started the fighting. A laugh tore from her lips as she glided over to him and kissed him, putting force behind the action. Usually she would not have dared be so bold, but it seemed that the fighting, and her husband's death, which he had heard whispers off but did not know if it was true, had emboldened her.

"My dear," he greeted, not moving from his position and allowing her to take the one to his right. "I take it your husband in, indeed, dead."

"Of course, My Lord," she replied with a high-pitched cackle, before she beckoned to someone behind him, a simple twist of her long fingers, and a baby, a child of nearly one, was placed into her arms. She didn't look at her with anything like motherly concern, in fact she only looked on with distaste, but she was her child and she had a duty to her, as much as she hated the idea. Her dark eyes caught his and he held out one hand for the child, Cassiopeia Leyla Lestrange, which his dearest Bella acquiesced to, placing his daughter in his arms. A sneer caught his mouth as he looked upon the innocent, untainted face, before he passed the child onto Lucius Malfoy, who had been given the task of caring for her. It was a demeaning task, and one fitting of his current station in the Dark Lords ranks.

"Stop," he ordered, the words quiet, authoritative. His followers stilled their words, and all fell silent once more. Raising his twisted wand to his throat he cast a wordless _Sonorous_, and when he next spoke his distorted voice carried on the breeze, reaching the Castle and those who resided within it.

_"You have fought valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery_. _Yet you have sustained heavy losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste. Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat immediately. You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured. I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you. You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself. I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest. If, at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, have not given yourself up, then battle recommences. This time, I shall enter the fray myself, Harry Potter, and I shall find you, and I shall punish every man, woman, and child who has tried to conceal you from me. One hour."_

The wand dropped from his throat and he smiled his famous, cold smile. Potter would come, there was no doubt about it. He would come, and he would be disposed of, dispatched as so many who had come between Lord Voldemort's goals had been before him.

An hour came and went, and still he did not come. His followers almost moaned with disappointment, but held it in as a figure drew off his invisibility cloak, a gift from his dead father no doubt, and came into the light. His uncontrollable, messy hair was even more uncontrollable and messy, a trait from his worthless father, and his emerald green eyes, a gift from his useless, Mudblood mother, were fixed resolutely on the figure at the head of the circle of Death Eaters.

"Harry Potter."

The name was a hiss, a hiss of delight, of excitement, of knowledge. "Ready to face your death?"

Potter raised his wand and the two spells were fired.

"Avada Kedavra."

"Expelliarmus."

A sharp gust of wind knocked him off his feet, sending him crashing into the tree behind him. "Leave me." He rose to his feet, anger spilling from his countenance, and refusing the helping hands offered to him. Harry Potter also lay on the ground, eyes closed, face pale.

"Is he dead."

His voice almost wavered, but he held it in, watching as Narcissa Malfoy, nee Black, was the one chosen to check on the stupid, naive boy. A moment later she was back, a small, almost imperceptible nod jerking her head. He grinned. Potter was dead. As cheers erupted in the clearing a sharp gasp tore from his throat, coming from his stomach. He only hand chance to look down, to see the crimson blood leaking from his body, before his legs collapsed under him and he was unable to move as he felt the life drain from him. His last sight before his world closed into blackness was Harry Potter's smug face standing above him as Voldemort breathed his last and, finally, the terror of the Wizarding World died on the floor of a clearing in the Forbidden Forest as his followers were rounded up and placed in Azkaban, where they would live the remainder of their lives.

**XxX**

**Twenty Years Later**

Bellatrix Lestrange opened her eyes and managed to drag herself from her pile of dank straw to the door, listening for when her jailer came past with the bucket of gruel they called food. It was always the same young, impressionable type that brought her food. They were always idiotic and deserved to die in the same sort of way as Frank and Alice Longbottom, who, she'd heard, had died six months previously, to the obvious desolation of their only son, Neville Longbottom.

The timbers of the roof above her head creaked and seemed to only be holding up by a thread. The cell was chilly – even for January. The type of cold that seeped into your clothes and mind, poisoning your thoughts. She could almost see her breath steaming on the frozen glass as she peered out of the prison cell and into the dank corridors outside. Her long, lank, once-glossy hair fell over her hazel-coloured eyes, only to be pushed impatiently out of the way. Small flurries of snow kept dropping on her head from one of the many holes in the roof, causing her to glare at it as if that would stop it. Stray strands of straw fluttered across the splintering floor. Her face felt like a block of ice and she couldn't smell anything bar the sweet scent of wet snow and fear. Her fingers, as they touched the door, could only feel rough wood under calloused hands.

Bellatrix turned her eyes to the wall, where she could see a bucket full of urine and a mattress of straw, now too dank to sleep on. A chair sat in the corner of the room, the headboard bent and the seat punched in. A little doll lay next to her on the ground: a black face with beetling, sunken black eyes, burnt hair, now cut short, and a little pinafore with a sown-on overcoat. She picked her up, touching the coarse dress and sneering at it. With an inhuman cry she launched it at the wall and then turned her eyes away again, waiting.

Through the window to outside small flakes were whirling past with no more sound than a whisper and no more purpose than I had here. Wind howled through otherwise silent passages and spoke to me. Muttering words of pain and death into my ears and making me lose all hope I ever had of leaving this place. Hope that had long since diminished anyway.

She didn't see but rather felt the sun rise into the sky and throw its weak, loving gaze over her. She could hear a commotion down the corridor as one of the guards – probably the blond one with the pansy, blue eyes and the fuzz on his chin from want of a beard – brought food to all the hungry inmates. She could hear his steady tread as he came down towards her.

He stopped outside the door. The key turned in the lock. With a satisfying click the door was pushed forward, and he entered, setting the food down near the urine bucket and, from the sloshing around that she could hear, he had displaced it. None of the other guards dared enter her room, or any other for that matter, without a Dementor entering first, but she was glad he was there, it made her job so much easier.

Blondie turned to go but his way was blocked. Bellatrix Lestrange stood there, her skinny, shaking legs holding her up, a crumpled letter crushed in her fist. Her hands closed around around his throat with no words being spoken. She could hear the frozen gargling coming from her prey as she limited, then cut off, the flow of air to his lungs. All too soon the gargling noises stopped and her prey stopped twitching. Disgusted she threw him to the ground before moving over the lifeless body and making her way to freedom.

Before she left she opened the letter once more, reading the hastily-scrawled parchment.

_Mother,_

_Our plan is almost complete. Potter and his family are coming tonight, will you be there? Can you be there? I await your reply. Finally we will have our revenge._

Bellatrix cackled, nothing could keep her from the revenge she would get for her lover's death. Potter had killed the person who meant the most to her and so now she would kill the people who meant the most to him. Cassiopeia Layla Lestrange had done her job well. Soon.

The house rose before her, solemn and silent, large and menacing. A knock sounded inside as she reached the door. A House Elf answered, but was kicked out of the way as she strode inside, calling for her before-unseen daughter.

A beautiful girl descended the steps. Her long, black hair was tied in a French plait down her back, curling over her left shoulder to drop to her waist in front. Her dark green eyes, belonging to neither her mother nor her father, were fixed on the woman at the bottom of the steps. She had a small nose and lips that were a deep crimson, like blood. She was dressed impeccably, but her clothes were muggle, much to Bellatrix's dismay.

"I had no choice," she said in reply to the unspoken question. Her voice was lilting and musical to her mothers ears. "_They _believe I am a Muggleborn."

"They will not think so for much longer."

"No, they will not," Cassiopeia replied as she pulled a wand from her pocket, depositing it in her mothers hand. "Lucius Malfoy gave it to me before I killed him."

A knock sounded. Bellatrix quickly, with even steps, dissapeared into the next room as her daughter glided over to the door, opening it with a large, fake smile. James Sirius Potter, a youth of nineteen, greeted her with a chaste kiss under his mothers scrutiny and Bellatrix noted the barely-supressed grimace that Cassi displayed before she smiled slightly at Lily Luna Potter as she entered. Lily Potter was much like her mother, but had her fathers stunning green eyes and her Uncle's height, towering over her brothers girlfriend even though she was four years younger. Albus Severus Potter was the biggest shock, however. At seventeen he was in his last year of Hogwarts, and looked, to Bellatrix's utmost surprise, like the exact replica of Harry Potter, the bane of her existence, when he had been that age. Ginevra Potter entered next, greeting Cassi with a motherly hug while the last person to enter, Harry Potter, smiled warmly and patted her on the back.

Then the six of them made their way into the lounge, Cassi giving her mother a tight nod as she left the entrance hall. Bellatrix moved from her position by the door and peered in at them. Cassiopeia was sitting next to Potter's eldest son, their hands intertwined, while the youngest two Potter children occupied the other cream sofa and the Potter matriarch and patriarch took two armchairs side by side, their hands also connected.

Bellatrix's wand rose and slashed, the youngest Potter child barely even able to draw breath before she collapsed onto the floor, unmoving. It took a moment for her family to respond, but when they did they jumped up, rushing to her side, Ginny Potter already beginning to sob, the weakling.

Two more slashes and Albus and James fell. Another and Ginny fell, leaving Harry Potter by himself with four dead family members. Pain, sharp, unforgiving pain, swept across his features before fury replaced it and he whirled to face Cassiopeia, who was sitting there, twirling her wand as she watched him, unaffected by his grief.

"Why?"

His voice cracked.

"You killed my father."

"Your father was a Muggle."

The confusion was evident in his face and Cassi grinned. "Oh, but he wasn't."

Bellatrix entered without being invited, causing Potter to gasp, eyes widening, before he attempted to charge at him. A spell from her daughter kept him still as she closed in.

"You killed my lover, Potter, and now I've killed yours, and I will make you live with that pain for the rest of your life." She gestured to Cassi, who cast a spell of her own invention. A spell that made him appear dead but still kept him aware of what was going on around him. Hopefully they would bury him without realising and he would eventually die from lack of oxygen. Or, even better, cremate him, burning him alive like they did to Witches long again. Ironic.

With a final, cruel, simultaneous laugh, the two Witches left the room, ready to carve their life together and attempt to bring Lord Voldemort back to life. In fact, they weren't going to attempt it, they were going to succeed.


	2. Announcement

**I'm so sorry that this isn't actually an update but I recently discovered Fictionpress and I have started a story that I think you'll like. If you fancy it could you please check it out. My username is Hattie97 and it is called Our Little Secret. Here is a preview. Thanks.**

The blistering sun beat down from the heavens, sending golden light over the small, homely buildings below. The sky was a clear, forget-me-not blue with dozens of birds soaring overhead, and the ground was dusty underfoot. Shops lined each side of the street, doors open wide to admit any manner of customers who wanted to enter, and voices mingled cheerfully from inside each one. There wasn't a frown to be seen: each child was giggling and squealing, each teenager was laughing and playful, and each adult was elated and merry. The streets were abnormally crowded seeing as it was a blissful summers day, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was about to go horribly wrong.

His hair was plastered to his forehead above eyes that were wide and frightened. A light breeze blew past him, making him shiver in the suddenly cool air. He was dressed casually so as not to stand out in the busy street, with only a pair of jeans, a plain white t-shirt that clung to his body and simple, white trainers. Even though he didn't usually bite his lip, now his teeth were wrenching it apart in his nervousness as he moved onto the pavement next to Waterstones.

He pretended to be like any other boy - rowdy, impolite and arrogant - but he knew he wasn't succeeding. Instead, he was quiet and withdrawn, the horrors that he'd seen and been witness to clouding his eyes and mind.

He continued to trudge along, trying to keep his head low so that he would not be recognizable to any of _their_ spies who might be watching. His eyes kept flicking this way and that in an effort to see if he had been spotted, but so far nothing was out of the ordinary.

There was a brilliant booming noise before the store he'd been hurrying past started to shake on its foundations. Terrified screams sounding from inside as people shoved each other in their rush to escape the collapsing building. In the next second a cloud of dust rose up as the shop finally came to rest, debris flying everywhere. Screams and sirens mixed in the air as the firemen arrived to what had obviously not been an accident. He had no doubt about who had caused it.

A shout to his left ripped him from his thoughts and he turned to see a shaking finger pointed at him. The man it belonged to had a cropped head of ginger hair and sparkling, sapphire-blue eyes that were burning with what looked like a mixture of hatred and fear.

"There."

That was all it took; every eye turned in his direction, curiosity and pain showing in every face. More sirens rent the air, signaling that the police were on their way. He found his breath coming out in sharp gasps as he stared straight into the eyes of his accuser.

"He did it."

Those final words jolted him from his state of shock and he glanced around in horror as three police cars drew up, the inhabitants all jumping out. By then all of the injured had been taken away and he dearly hoped that there were no dead, but knowing them, there probably would be.

A small hand fitted itself into his palm but before he could turn to look at the culprit, he was being dragged away from the crime-scene. He tried to look back once but his companion just tugged impatiently on his arm and he was forced to continue.

Whoever it was took him down a series of narrowly twisting streets until she reached a certain house. They fumbled for a moment with the key to the door before pushing it open and stumbling into the sitting room beyond.

It was only then that he got a good look at his 'kidnapper'. She was about a head shorter than him and dressed in form-fitting jeans and a blue, Jack Wills hoodie with the hood pulled up to shield her face from view. Even so he could see a hint of brown hair peeping through.

"Who are you?" he snapped rudely, not willing to take any chances even though she didn't look like she could hurt a fly.

Instead of replying, she carefully removed the hood and allowed it to fall down her back. Cinnamon colored curls cascaded to her waist and her cocoa-brown eyes regarded him solemnly. She had a cute, button nose and full, rouge lips. A slight smile curled the corners of her mouth as she finally spoke.

"My name is Aisling Ava Sophia Lowe but you can call me Ash."


End file.
